Eritrea: Presidetnt Isaias Afwerki Demand To Be Heard Reveals Corruption of UNSC and UN Charter
With every passing day it is becoming more apparent that the United Nations and more exactly the United Nations Security Counsel has been reduced to an American foreign policy apparatuses or is usurped “by the American authorities”. At most inopportune times the founding Charter, The Charter of The United Nations, is deliberately ignored and relegated to an ineffectual instrument as opposed to being the sacrosanct document that laid down the rules for international cooperation, international law and engagement. Such derogation of the UN Charter has been long in coming as some insights gleaned from the former UN Secretary General, Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, attest.
According to a March 2004 statement to the French newspaper Liberation, the former UN Secretary General Boutrous Boutros-Ghali states “that a major problem at the UN was that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations was very infiltrated by the American authorities”. Boutros-Ghali further elaborated:
“The US authorities have taken control of the UN system through financial administration and the appointment of officers and staff who are paid directly by the United States. The UN doesn’t have the means to appoint senior officers and specialist staff. When these people are selected and paid by a foreign government, they are obviously more loyal to that government than to the UN. As a result, reports presented to the Secretary General and to the Security Council are purged and modified.” (Boutrous Boutros-Ghali)
Boutros Boutros-Ghali opinion quoted above is inline with many well-respected social and political commentators. Mr. Ghali has also stated “the United Nations is just an instrument at the service of American policy.” (Boutros Boutros Ghali, 2003). That the UN is basically “a reliable instrument of U.S. foreign policy” (N. Chomsky) is a commonly held view now.
So the reply by Martin Nesirky, Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, comes as no shock when Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press asked what Ban ki-moon’s thoughts are “as the UN system’s top official, that a head of state, when he or she asks to address an organ like the Security Council, should be allowed to: if talking is better that not talking.”
Ban’s spokesman Nesirky reply was, “It’s for the Security Council to decide.”
It is shameful for a spokes person of the UNSG or anybody of the UN to relegate such rights, as enshrined on The Charter of The United Nations, to a decision of a politically charged Security Council. He ought to have stated what the UN Charters requires and stood by it. It is for a reason the UN Charter under Chapter V, titled “the Security Council”, explicitly states in Article 31:
“Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council may participate, without vote, in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council whenever the latter considers that the interests of that Member are specially affected.”
Article 32 adds:
“Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council or any state which is not a Member of the United Nations, if it is a party to a dispute under consideration by the Security Council, shall be invited to participate, without vote, in the discussion relating to the dispute. The Security Council shall lay down such conditions as it deems just for the participation of a state which is not a Member of the United Nations.”
Let alone Eritrea asking to address the Security Council, in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Charter, Eritrea should have been “invited to participate,” by the Security Council “in the discussion relating to the dispute” or “in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council whenever the latter considers that the interests of that Member are specially affected.”
That Eritrea’s interest are “specially affected” is a forgone conclusion, and that ONLY Eritrea’s interest are “specially affected” by the discussions and actions of the resolution considered is also in little doubt. In short the dispute of whether the President of Eritrea addressing the Security Council is a reflection of both the dysfunction at the UN and the complete contempt for the Charter that exists.
Neither Ban Ki-moon, his spokes person, Susan Rice and her government ought to have the right or privilege to trample upon The Charter of The United Nations. Nobody is conferring on the President of Eritrea the right to address the Security Council, the Charter does. America’s opposition via Susan Rice for the President of Eritrea to address the Security Council only yet again reveals their complete disregard of the rules of law and engagement that they so profusely declare to support .
